POSTURE investigates the theme of bodily attitudes, postures and movements within one of the most important pieces of cultural heritage, i.e. the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, it explores the interpretation, transmission and transformation of this theme within cultural products (ancient biblical translations and subsequent exegetical traditions) that, either directly or indirectly, depend on the Bible.
POSTURE intersects two scientific fields, i.e. the semantics of Biblical Hebrew/Aramaic (BH/BA) and the anthropology of the biblical world and related contexts. From a linguistic point of view, verbs of posture and motion show several interesting idiomatic and metaphorical usages, being used to express also abstract concepts and grammatical aspects. From a socio-anthropological point of view, posture and body language can express real or assumed power relationships and hierarchies. They can serve as “externalizers” of status, gender, age, and physical weakness. Self-positioning and patterns of movement serve to establish, express, and maintain group identity. Moving towards a person is also a special kind of social act, indicating the desire to interact or to obtain something (e.g. information, protection, friendship, help), while maintaining a distance may indicate hostility, self-protection, respect, or dominance over others. Specific body movements are associated with honourable behaviour toward an elder or an authority, whereas intentional transgressions of official etiquette are sign of open contrast and provocation.
The combination of semantic and anthropological investigations represents the innovation of POSTURE: exploring the semantics of posture and motion verbs in the Hebrew Bible from the social, anthropological and interactional perspectives will allow to rethink the idea of body in this context. Furthermore, the study of the reception of biblical “postures” in different cultural products (translations and exegetical traditions) will shed light on historical and intercultural processes in Antiquity and Late Antiquity.
